Skaneateles football falls to Homer, 23-13

Not so long ago, the Skaneateles football team resided alongside Homer in the Section III Class B ranks. So it wasn’t that unusual for the Lakers to choose the Trojans as a non-league opponent when the 2013 schedule was put together.

Yet something odd did take place Friday night when Skaneateles fell, 23-13, to Homer at Butts Field. It was the first time since 2010 that the Lakers had lost any regular-season contest.

Skaneateles had, of course, gone through the 2011 regular season with a perfect 7-0 mark, and did the same a year ago en route to the sectional Class C title.

But the Lakers had required a second-half comeback to fight past Canastota 35-21 in its Sept. 6 opener, and now it was facing a Homer side that had creamed Phoenix 52-6 in the Carrier Dome just five days earlier.

Picking up right from there, the Trojans seized a 7-0 first-quarter edge when it drove to the Lakers’ six-yard line before Jake Casey scored the first of his two touchdowns of the night.

Still trailing in the second quarter, Skaneateles briefly rose up, Tyler Parr conducting a scoring drive capped by a nine-yard TD pass to Nick Hyland that cut the margin to 7-6. But Homer countered with the big play, Alec Bush breaking loose on a 58-yard sprint to the end zone, accounting for nearly half his 127 rushing yards for the night.

That 14-6 halftime deficit mirrored what the Lakers faced against Canastota, but Homer wasn’t about to give this one away. Casey returned in the third quarter, scoring from 15 yards out, and the Trojans’ defense tacked on a safety,Parr tackled by Matt Noras in the end zone, that made it 23-6 in the final period.

Battling to the end, the Lakers drove in the fourth quarter to Matt Lee’s four-yard scoring run, but Homer surrendered nothing more and improved its mark to 2-0.

Skaneateles is still 1-0 in Class C West division play, to which it returns next Friday when it meets Hannibal at Hyatt Stadium. The Warriors, playing road games all season, are 0-2 and are coming off a 33-6 defeat to the same Canastota Raiders that Skaneateles got away from in the opener.